


The Constant Struggle Towards the Elusive Truth

by anamatics



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:51:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some post-Cricket Game Processing - Spoilers, naturally.</p><p>Henry doesn’t go home.<br/>Not to Snow’s, not to his mother’s.<br/>He doesn’t have a home any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Constant Struggle Towards the Elusive Truth

Henry doesn't go home.

Not to Snow's, not to his mother's.

He doesn't have a home any more.

He takes a deep breath and stands out on the rocky outcropping where his castle used to be.  It is windy, winter is coming back once more, and he stretches his fingers out to try and catch that salty wind.  It slips through his fingers and he crumbles, knees bent and head bowed - confusion all around him. 

His mother - his _mother_ \- not Emma, not Snow, his own mother had killed someone.  Had killed someone here. He couldn't believe it, but Emma would not lie. 

Henry's hands claw at his cheeks, shivering in the cold as his nails bit into them.  They're not as round any more, Emma had said he'd grown. 

Emma had said a lot of things.

Henry doesn't go home because he know that he will have to sit there and face them all.  Their judgmental stares and their absolute conviction in their rightness.  They can't be right though.  It has to be a trick - it's gotta be.  There's no way that his mother, who was trying so - so -  hard, would go back on her promise.  She never broke promises she'd made to Henry, she always made good on them.

She and Mr. Gold were the same like that, brokering deals, keeping their word.  If she'd sworn she wouldn't... then why.

Even though it's forty degrees and there's a strong wind off the harbor, Henry curls his arms around his knees and stares out at the frothy sea.  It's gray and angry today, almost the same color as they sky overhead, and he wonders if maybe it'll be cold enough to snow soon.  He hopes so, because he loves the snow dearly.  Less so recently, because it's kept him inside. 

Henry likes to be outside.

His mother, long ago, had promised him that as long as he didn't go within twenty feet of the water, and always crossed the road on a crosswalk, that she saw no problem with his wandering.  He was to stay away from Mr. Gold's pawn shop, and the woods above town.  If he did that, he was free to wander.  Storybrooke was a safe town, once upon a time.

What had happened to make his mom so mad at Archie?  Was it that he'd told Emma things about their sessions?  Henry knows that doctors weren't supposed to do that, and that Emma had gotten into trouble with the old sheriff before for doing the same thing with his files.  Henry didn't really mind it then, if Emma looked at them, because he'd wanted her to understand the curse.  His mother had many more secrets than a kid just starting fifth grade though.  Many more.

But... Archie isn't even a real doctor - or at least he wasn't. 

Henry breathes onto his fingers and watches as his breath curls around them and does little to warm them.  It's too cold out here and he really should go inside.  Yet he cannot bring himself to do so.  He doesn't want to go back to those faces that are so convinced that someone is evil and has done evil things here, in this place where she promised to be better.

Emma ... Emma had told him that she'd seen it with her own eyes.  She'd said Mr. Gold had helped her to use magic.

Henry wonders the price Emma will pay.  Magic is an evil thing; his mother has explained this to him many times.  It corrupts souls and utterly destroys them. 

"I fear my soul is long-gone," she'd confessed as they'd brewed David's sleeping potion.  "And that even stopping completely would not save it."

He hadn't had an answer then, and he doesn't have one now.  He just feels sick to his stomach when he thinks about going back there.  Emma thinks that she's victorious, but Henry's grown used to having his mom around and not being constantly at odds with her.  He likes it.  It feels... like home.

When he finally moves from his spot, twilight has started to fall and it's getting dark.  He cuts up the high street and stands outside his house, wiggling his toes inside his shoes.  There is a single light on in his mother's bedroom. 

Emma had told him that under no circumstances was he to see her.  That she was an evil murderer and that she would be brought to justice. 

Archie was helping her, it didn't make sense.

He stands at the wrought-iron gate to his home and wishes that things were different. He doesn't want to break his promise to Emma, but he doesn't to see his mother like this.  He can't believe it, but Emma saw it with her own two eyes - even though she said that his mom hadn't known.  He can't, he can't.  Henry's expression hardens then.  He won't believe it. 

He pushes open the gate and marches to the door.  The key is still hidden in the planter where it's always been, and he unlocks it and pokes his head in. 

The house is quiet and steady.  It's an older house, his mother has told him time and time again, it sometimes settles and makes strange noises.

Today it is silent. 

"Mom!"  he calls, standing at the foot of the stairs and staring upwards towards the landing.  "Mom, it's me!"

When he sees her, he almost wishes that he hasn't.  She's been crying and her eyes are puffy and red.  Her dress is rumpled and her hair is sticking up in the back.  She must have been crying around a pillow.  He's seen her do that before - but she's never looked so utterly wrecked before.  "You can't be here," she says, hurrying down the stairs, barefoot and urgent.  "If Emma sees you here..."

"I came of my own free will," Henry says practically, "You didn't force me in here, and I want to be here.  What's she going to do?"

His mother's face turns dark and murderous for a moment before it smooths back into puffy eyes and a weak smile.  "Having me executed seems a likely option."

Henry sits down on the bottom step and pats the spot next to him.  "She says she saw it with her own eyes, and that Mr. Gold helped her to use magic to see it,"  He explains.  "And that you choked him, which really isn't your style at all."

She perches on the stair next to him and shakes her head. "No," she admits tiredly, "I suppose that it isn't."  She leans forward, head resting in her palms and sighs, long and loud.  "I used magic, Henry."

"I know you did," because Emma had seen it fit to include a long and rather epic account (with added details from Snow and David) about how she'd been magically attacked.  "She said things to you and you reacted badly."

"Are you sure that you're only ten?"  his mother asks mildly, an eyebrow raised and a small smile on her face.  "Because sometimes I swear..."

Henry perks up, because Emma's already rounding his age up and he is too, "It's almost my birthday - so maybe I'm actually, quite positively, nearly eleven.  Which is more than ten."

She laughs then, and it sounds good.  "I suppose you're right.  Did you want anything for your birthday?"

"All this to stop," Henry makes a sweeping gesture around his home.  "I don't like being stuck between you guys.  I like Emma and Snow and David fine, but you're my _mom_."

She raises her arm and he scoots over, curling into her side and breathing in her scent.  Emma always smells like leather and cigarette smoke and perfume applied to liberally.  His mom smells better, more refined, and there's always the scent of apples around her.  "You don't have to say these things to me to get a confession out of me, Henry."  She doesn’t look at him as she says it and Henry winces, because yeah, he can see where it would look like that.  "I don't lie to you anymore and I won't start again."

"Can you do what Emma did with Pongo's memories with your own?"  Henry asks.

"Do you really think that they'll believe me if I come to them with that?  I could show them the Leno and late night news I watched - and then the three chapters of the book I read, and then my dreams.  It won't matter because they can't believe me.  It doesn't fit their world-view," his mother shakes her head.  "If I am to find out what happened to Archie, I'm going to need time, Henry.  Someone used my image to do it and that's no easy feat with magic."

"So who?"  Henry asks and she pulls him closer.  "Who could do that sort of magic?"

She purses her lips and does not reply for a long time.  When she finally does speak, her voice comes shaky and frightened.  More scared than Henry's ever heard her.  "My... mother was quiet adept at it."

They talk for a few minutes more, and she says nothing more about magic or what has happened.  Henry's about to ask again when she pushes him towards the door and tells him to stay on the well-lit streets walking home.  She has to look into something, and he can't stay.

Henry walks home slowly, kicking a rock and scowling.  He's afraid of the idea of any witch being here that isn't his mother.  He's afraid of a lot of things.

Mostly right now he's afraid about going and facing Emma.

He hates that she's so quick to believe everything, even if it's spelled out before her face.  They can't use a dog's memories in court, after all - right?  He'll ask Ruby about that tomorrow.

"Where have you been?"  Emma demands as soon as he comes in the door.  Her hands are on her hips and her expression is angry and not worried.  Henry doesn't like it.

"Out," is all Henry says, before he retreats, to regroup, and possibly figure out how to fix this. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hate how Henry is written in the show, so here's my take on him.


End file.
